Eric Carter Wins National Mountain-Cross Champions...
EC defends his title with hard-fought racing - Congrats!
Sonoma, Cali., July 16, 2006 -- Courtesy of Fred Dreier
VeloNews associate editor
Eric Carter (Mongoose) nailed the start and withstood a hard-charging Brian Lopes to defend his national mountain-cross championship at the 2006 USA Cycling National Mountain Bike Championships. The 36-year-old Carter, who hails from Temecula, California, was more than one second slower than Lopes in qualifying, but perfectly timed the dropping of the start gate to grab an advantage on the reigning world champion in the finals. Surprisingly, Lopes chose the outside lane in the finals, giving Carter the inside.
"Luckily I was able to shut him down because we all know that when Brian gets out front he gets going like a freight train," Carter said. "I know Brian likes to ride from the front, and generally the inside lane is the controlling lane, so if I took the inside lane and he didn`t get a good start he had no chance to control the race. I took the risk and rolled the dice but I figured the shortest distance was what I was going to need to win and it paid off. Luckily I was able to swerve enough around the course, sometimes intentional and sometimes not, to hold him off. Five more feet and he would have taken it."
Indeed, the current world champ nearly pipped Carter at the line. The finish was close enough for Lopes to call for a photo finish, but the judges declared Carter the victor.
"I think Eric anticipated the gate. He got an awesome gate. He was going for broke," said Lopes. "They said he got me. I would like to see some video just to be sure. It was actually a fun track. It had a challenging rhythm section at the end. It was the first course I`ve ridden in a long time that has a section that you actually have to think about. Nine times out of 10 you look at the stuff and say, ‘Eh, there you go.`"
Both Carter and Lopes are coming back from injuries. Lopes separated his shoulder at the June 4 World Cup in Willingen, Germany. Carter broke his collarbone on May 7 at the World Cup opener in Vigo, Spain.
"My doctor told me when I dusted my collarbone that I was looking at eight weeks with surgery and 16 weeks without. I got back on the week at five," Carter said. "I did lots of rehab. Some cold laser treatment. I did everything I could to get me back on my bike so I could defend this jersey. So, here we are, racing bikes. I`m stoked."